UFC: For Bader, UFC beats a day at the office

On Saturday night, Ultimate Fighting Championship heads to Indianapolis for UFC 119, where Ryan Bader meets Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in the co-main event. Taking a break from preparations, Bader went 1-on-1 with Postmedia reporter Dave Deibert, discussing photo shoots, naked bike rides and how parties in Las Vegas compare to those in college.

Postmedia: You have your own T-shirt line with TapouT. How much time do you spend before the photo shoots making sure your faux-hawk is perfect and your beard is groomed immaculately?

Bader: I wake up looking this good so I don’t spend too much time. Honestly, not even five minutes. Just 30 seconds. I throw some gel in my hair and I’m good to go. Although I do have to have the (electric razor) beard-setting on five o’clock shadow permanently.

Postmedia: You debuted with UFC on the reality-TV show The Ultimate Fighter. Name another reality show on which you’d like to appear.

Bader: I’d like to do something that has some skill to it, something like Dancing With the Stars. It sounds corny, but I respect more reality stars that actually have some sort of talent or skill other than just bitching and getting out of control and drinking.

Postmedia: Nogueira guaranteed he’s going to give you your first loss. Are there any guarantees you’ve made that you haven’t backed up?

Bader: Probably be like, ‘Mom, I guarantee I’ll be home at this time’ or ‘Mom, I guarantee you I’ll be safe tonight’ and then doing things the opposite. I’ve had more than my fair share of those.

Postmedia: When you were in Vancouver for UFC 115 in June, you saw the city’s annual Naked Bike Ride. Was there more of an urge to turn away or could you not stop staring?

Bader: I love staring at stuff I’m not supposed to be looking at. I was enjoying it. Obviously not the 55-year-old men who were naked with things hanging out, but I kind of like freaky things, different things, so I was just watching it.

Postmedia: Where are the better parties: Arizona State University, where you went to school, or pool parties around Las Vegas, where you seem to pop up in plenty of pictures by (MMA and Las Vegas photographer) Tracy Lee?

Bader: That’s tough. I’d have to say the better parties would be probably the Vegas ones, but going there now, I’m a little well known from fighting. But the ASU ones, where you really didn’t give a crap and nobody knew you and you could do whatever the hell you wanted, those definitely got crazier.

Postmedia: What’s the best heckle you’ve ever heard?

Bader: In college wrestling, a guy heckled for University of California-Davis . . . He had this little trumpet horn that he played all the time. He was so good at it, he got one of our guys to run off the mat during a wrestling match and go after him in the stands. He would pull out everything, he would just get you going, keep chipping away at you until he broke you. He was definitely the best heckler.

Postmedia: You’re on your first pay-per-view poster. Have you asked UFC to get you a stack to pin them up all over your house or around the neighbourhood?

Bader: I haven’t yet but usually you get, like, four of them after the fight. I’m waiting on that. For this poster, I’ll probably frame it and put it up in the house. It was a good photo. I’m glad with the photo they chose so I’m happy.

Postmedia: You briefly worked in sales and marketing for a big telecom company in Arizona. Describe a bad day there compared to a bad day as a fighter.

Bader: Every day at work there was a bad day. I’d wake up at 6 a.m., take a shower. I would be miserable because I didn’t get enough sleep. I was probably training after work the night before so I’d come home and eat at 10 p.m. and go right to bed. No free time. I’d drive to work and it takes me an hour-and-a-half. I’m drinking my coffee and the coffee’s probably upsetting my stomach. Finally I get there, go in, some BS e-mails from people not happy about something. Pretend to work for a little while (but) surfing the MMA message boards. I’d go and meet with a bunch of other guys, go get a breakfast burrito, talk about how much we hated the job. Then I’d actually go do some sales, some cold calls, which I absolutely despised. If it was a really bad day, we’d have a cold-call blitz. I’d actually pretend to call sometimes. If my manager walked by, I’d be talking to the phone; nobody would be on it. I’d drive back home, have an hour-and-a-half drive and be miserable. Then I’d go and train and do it all over again. Now a bad day at work: I wake up at 8:30 or 9 a.m. I eat some breakfast. I go to practice, which I love to do anyway. A bad day for me here is getting my ass kicked in the gym by my friends, which actually motivates me to work even harder the next day . . . Getting my butt kicked in the gym, I go home, pout a little bit and come back better the next day. It’s still a million times better. I’m actually doing what I love to do and what I want to do.

Postmedia: Do you actually like the Star Wars movies?

Bader: It’s not that I don’t like them. People come up to me and start talking Star Wars because my nickname is ‘Darth’ Bader. But a lot of times it’s over my head because I really don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

ddeibertsp.canwest.com

Twitter.com/davedeibert

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UFC: For Bader, UFC beats a day at the office

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